Heads or Tails?
by EGB Fan
Summary: After way too long the date of Egon and Janine’s wedding is finally approaching, but Kylie can’t seem to enter into the spirit of things and the arrival of an unexpected visitor really doesn't help matters.


_Extreme Ghostbusters:_** Heads or Tails?**

Ok, so Kylie Griffin wasn't exactly fond of children – and she had been less than thrilled when childminding duties had fallen solely on her. Some minutes before now she had found herself alone with the two kids, as Roland and Garrett had suddenly disappeared during the somewhat heated debate over whether Batman or Superman translated better to the big screen. (Jessica thought that Superman's overall image was too cartoon-ish for a serious movie, while Oscar maintained that Batman's lack of "real super powers" was visually unexciting.)

But now that the argument had died down, Kylie continuously found herself looking up from her copy of "Dragons, Giants and Witches: The Truth Behind the Fairytale" to observe her young charges. She hadn't much experience with children, and tended to assume that she didn't like them much; but she was beginning to find these two slightly fascinating. At the moment, ten-year-old Oscar Wallance was unselfconsciously playing air guitar to some fast-paced rock song on a CD Walkman; and his five-year-old half-sister Jessica Venkman was idly flicking through one of Janine's bridal magazines.

"Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross," the little girl chanted on every turn of the page. "Gross, gross, gross, GROSS! Gross, gross..."

She was quite sweet really, Kylie reflected. Jessica was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, her untidy dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Dana Venkman maintained a constant struggle to try and keep her scruffy little daughter looking presentable, but she was fighting a losing battle. Throughout the morning odd strands of hair had been gradually escaping from the navy blue scrunchy and now hung in wispy curls around Jessica's neck and shoulders.

"Gross, gross, gross, gross, eww – GROSS! Gross, gross, no WAY! Gross..."

The CD Walkman, which was clipped snugly to the waistband of its owner's black jeans, suddenly stopped its distant, tinny sound. Oscar pulled down the headphones and let them hang around his neck; and the imaginary guitar he presumably put on standby in his imagination until he next needed it for one of his rock star fantasies. Aw, sweet.

"You know, Jess." Oscar leant on the back of the sofa and looked impassively at the magazine over his sister's shoulder. "You're going to have to wear a dress to the wedding."

Jessica turned her head to look at Oscar. She had been frowning ever since she'd opened the magazine and seen the first of several photographs of bridesmaid's dresses; but at these words her frown deepened.

You could tell they were brother and sister, Kylie reflected; there was some of their mother in both of them. And it was sweet too; the way Jessica emulated her big brother to the point of borrowing his clothes. Those ultra-faded blue jeans were quite obviously hand-me-downs – Jessica's own property now – but Kylie could have sworn she had seen Oscar wearing that oversized Blink-182 t-shirt only days before.

"I know," Jessica addressed her brother churlishly. "It's not fair. If Egon and Janine had married each other when Dad says they should have, I wouldn't have been born yet. Then I wouldn't have to wear a dress."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," Oscar was forced to agree.

"Why did they wait 'til they were old anyway?" Jessica went on, warming to her theme. "I mean, if they really have to get married, why not get it over with?"

Maybe it was a good idea for them to wait until they were sure, Kylie silently argued Jessica's point. How old had her parents been when they got married? She did a quick sum in her head: her father must have been twenty-three and her mother just twenty. Wow. Her dad wasn't kidding when he said they married too young.

Steve and Jill Griffin had been significantly younger than Egon and Janine were the first time they had fallen in love, so perhaps the two cases weren't really so comparable. And now, ten-odd years on (admittedly with quite a long break from their relationship in between), Egon and Janine still wanted to tie the knot. That had to mean it was a good idea, surely.

"I don't know, Jess," Oscar was saying irritably. "But it doesn't matter, does it, because they're getting married now. And anyway, what if Mom and Dad had gotten married first chance they got?"

"What if?" Jessica asked in challenging tones.

"I would have never been born," Oscar pointed out. Then he caught sight of his sister's disappearing frown and added hastily, "Shut up. You'd only have a different older brother – or an older sister," he added thoughtfully. "Then she'd be Jessica and you'd be called Sally or something."

The kid was right, Kylie reflected. There was some debate among the new generation of Ghostbusters as to whether Dana had married Andre Wallance, Oscar's biological father, on the rebound from Peter or whether it had been an unbiased, informed decision. Either way, it was just as well she did marry him. Oscar was a regular little ray of sunshine, and any idiot could see that Peter loved him like his own. Hell, it sounded so natural when Oscar addressed his stepfather as "Dad"; the Venkmans (plus one Wallance) were such a cheerful little Waltons-type family that Kylie could almost resent them if she wanted to.

Now why did her thoughts keep returning to her own parents? Kylie had only just realised that she and Oscar had something blindingly obvious in common: they were both the product of marriages that should never have happened. And now Oscar's absentee father was almost as elusive as her own mother was – but at least Andre Wallance had had the decency to leave before his child had a chance to get attached.

"What?" demanded Oscar, returning his sister's unreadable frown.

"So?" Jessica returned simply.

"So what?"

"So what's your point?"

"Um... I don't know," shrugged Oscar. "Everything happens for a reason?"

Jessica scoffed.

"Hey, come on! I think I may be onto something," Oscar grinned jovially at her. "Like, it wasn't the best idea for Mom to marry Andre, right? But if she hadn't, the greatest rock star of all time would never have been born."

Jessica started to giggle, and Kylie was grateful for that. Their conversation could easily have developed into another quarrel, but Oscar seemed to remember that he was fond of his sister and decided to be nice to her – at least for a while. Jessica Venkman would never know true loneliness, Kylie thought with a slight pang. That kid's parents spent their every spare moment with her and her brother – and Oscar would be there for her long after they were gone.

The click of the front door downstairs announced a new arrival to the Firehouse. It had to be Eduardo, Kylie thought; since she, Roland, Garrett, Egon and Janine were already there. Unless it was a client. That was entirely possible – but surely it was too early for either Peter or Dana to be collecting their children.

No, she had been right the first time. It was Eduardo – plus his sister-in-law Beth and his nephew/her son Kevin. Now what were they doing there? Duh – Kevin had obviously been brought along to keep Oscar entertained. The two boys were only about a month apart in age, so naturally everybody assumed they must get along swimmingly. And they did get on well, as it happened, because they were both very nice kids and they both made the effort to get along with anybody that was put in front of them.

"Ok, I'm going," Beth suddenly announced, in the same moment that she entered the room. Then, looking over at Kylie, she explained (very) briefly, "Dentist," and pulled an isn't-life-inconvenient face.

Kylie smiled politely at her. Beth was a nice woman, and Kevin had obviously learnt his amiability from her. Eduardo's much older brother Carlos was not exactly what one might call nice – but in his favour, he had managed to pass his exotic good looks on to his son.

Kevin Rivera was undoubtedly an attractive child, with bright hazel eyes, a mop of unruly chestnut hair and a light tan that would not fade away with the summer months. Carl Rivera's Hispanic ancestry had just overwhelmed his wife's recessive blond-hair-blue-eye-type genes.

"See you later, honey," Beth smiled at Kevin, stooping slightly to smack a kiss onto his cheek. "Have a nice time."

"Yeah, you too," Kevin grinned at her.

Beth swatted her son playfully on the forehead, thanked Eduardo for taking care of him, said a brief hello to Oscar and Jessica and then – finally – she left.

Now that's a devoted mother if ever I saw one, Kylie thought sadly. Saying goodbye to her son every way she knows how before she'll leave him for any time at all – unlike some people I could mention...

"Are you ok?" Eduardo's voice cut into her thoughts.

Uh-oh. He was being nice to her again. He'd been doing that a lot lately – ever since she'd helped him through a brief period of emotional turmoil involving his late father and a questionable medium, in fact. Was he trying to thank her for her support, Kylie wondered, or was he just trying to make her feel guilty that she wasn't as nice to him? Probably the latter, she thought bitterly. Bastard.

"Shouldn't I be?" she snapped.

Eduardo, totally against his nature, remained cool, calm and decidedly pleasant. He simply shrugged and said kindly, "You look a little down, that's all."

"Well I'm not," Kylie muttered grudgingly.

"Ok," Eduardo shrugged again. "Cool."

He was very laid-back at the moment, Kylie noticed. Never one to worry about exam results, Eduardo was evidently enjoying a relaxing summer out of college. He was looking good too, she thought: tanned and toned in tight jeans and t-shirt; smooth brown arms exposed to the summer air...

Argh! Stop thinking that! It was because he was smiling. Eduardo had one of those smiles that just... Kylie considered... drew you. When he smiled, it was like an eclipse: so rare that you just felt compelled to look at it while you still had the chance. But now, with the fond look Eduardo was giving Kevin's attempts to make dear little Jessica Venkman laugh, Kylie was in serious danger of seeing that other side to him: the side he very rarely revealed to others but that she could so easily –

Kylie, she thought desperately. Stop it. Don't look at them. Just read the book.

But it was just so compelling. Eduardo laughing with three kids over the contents of a bridal magazine – it was absolutely adorable.

Kevin, like Jessica and Oscar, really was one of the lucky ones, Kylie reflected. Ok, so he was an only-child; but he had a doting mother, a fun uncle and at least one good friend – plus a loving father, of course, but he wasn't around just at the moment.

The book wasn't enough of a distraction. Kylie snapped it shut, got to her feet and made her way to the kitchen. Maybe there was some kind of pick-me-up in there. She could do with one of those: a nice big tub of Haagen-Dazs or something.

"So who won?" Garrett Miller asked brightly. He and Roland Jackson were in the middle of coffee and a game of Snakes and Ladders at the kitchen table.

"Huh?" frowned Kylie. She opened the freezer and started to poke around inside it.

"Batman or Superman?" Garrett clarified.

"Oh, I see what you mean," Kylie muttered distractedly. "Um... Batman. Oscar gave up after Jessica accused him of being shallow."

Slimer had magically appeared in the kitchen at the sound of the freezer opening, and Kylie had to flap her hand around in order to keep the greedy little ghoul at bay.

"Hm," Garrett said curtly. "At least Superman managed to stay as one actor."

"Are you ok, Kylie?" Roland asked anxiously.

"Why does everybody keep asking me that?" Kylie demanded irritably. "Don't I look ok? Oh jeez, is this all there is?" she added, staring irately at the half-full (or on that particular day, half-empty) tub of vanilla ice-cream she had plucked from the freezer.

"Put some chocolate sauce on it," Garrett suggested helpfully.

"Yum!" agreed Slimer.

Kylie cocked an eyebrow and asked dubiously, "Is there any?"

"I don't know," shrugged Garrett. "Damn!" He had just landed on the head of a particularly large snake.

"Argh!" fumed Kylie, thinking tetchily: Typical. She threw the ice-cream tub back into the freezer (much to Slimer's disappointment) and forcefully kicked the door shut before announcing morosely, "I'm going home."

However she had only got as far as the sitting room when Jessica trotted over to her with a board game of some sort clutched to her chest. The little girl blinked sweetly up at Kylie and said, with an enchanting smile on her lips, "Wanna play Monopoly?"

"You play Monopoly?" Kylie asked incredulously.

"Ha!" came Oscar's voice from the other side of the room. "She's the only one of us who can beat Dad."

Jessica's smile drooped at the edges slightly as she said forlornly, "Oscar won't play with me."

"Come on, Jess, you know how I feel about Monopoly," her brother reasoned. "The object is to make everybody else bankrupt. I just think it's so mean."

"That's why you never win," Eduardo chimed in. "Come on, kid, I'll help you," and he started to steer Oscar towards a space on the floor. Then he looked at Jessica and added, "Jess, you can help Kevin. He's too nice as well. Everybody always beats him."

Grinning broadly, Jessica trotted over to where Kevin was standing and slotted her hand into his. Kylie was relieved. It seemed that she wasn't needed after all – but of course Oscar and Kevin were both far too polite to let her be excluded from their fun.

"Wanna play?" they asked in unison.

"No, that's ok," Kylie answered courteously enough, managing a wobbly smile in the boys' direction. Well, they were nice kids. They didn't deserve to suffer from her bad mood. "Actually I was about to go home."

"Party pooper," pouted Jessica. "Monopoly's no fun with two."

So play as four, Kylie thought irritably. Quite frankly, she couldn't stand a friendly mid-morning board game – she really couldn't. Aloud she said, "Ask Roland and Garrett. They're probably done playing Snakes and Ladders by now. I really need to get home and..." – WHAT?

"Feed your cat?" Eduardo suggested helpfully.

"No," Kylie shot back defensively.

"Well you're not going to study, surely."

"Of course not."

"Well, there go all your usual excuses," Eduardo said expressionlessly, apparently more interested in handing out fake dollar bills than in talking to her. "Go on, then; you really need to get home and what?"

Cry, thought Kylie. For some unfathomable reason, she really felt like crying. And if she was present when Dana and/or Peter arrived at the Firehouse to a reception of hugs and kisses from their kids – well, she would almost certainly burst into tears there and then.

"Deal with a problem only one of you will ever have to worry about," Kylie returned curtly, thinking: There – that should shut him up. And maybe it would excuse her foul mood as well. She was aware that she had been utterly horrible to everyone all morning, but there was just nothing she could do about it.

"Oh." Oscar's face clouded over with sympathy. "I hope you're feeling ok."

What an utterly sweet, adorable, kind, thoughtful kid. Kylie had to try hard not to snap at him. If anything he deserved her kindness, but she seemed to have none of that in her at the moment. Honestly, what was the matter with her lately?

x x x

Premonitions; predicting the future in small ways; inexplicable feelings of dread preceding something huge that you couldn't possibly have anticipated. It was all fascinating stuff, and something that Kylie resolved to look up in "Spengler's Spirit Guide" first chance she got. Because there, outside the apartment building whose attic room she rented, was her mother.

"Mom!" exclaimed Kylie, metaphorically knocked off her feet by the bombardment of mixed emotions that suddenly hit her: sadness, anger, indignation, betrayal, hatred... relief. Even love – though she couldn't quite admit to herself that one was there. "What are you doing here?"

Jill Griffin was the classic forty-something who wanted to be – and even more wanted people to believe that she was – a thirty-something. Here she stood now, outside her estranged daughter's home, in skin-tight blue jeans, a flimsy cotton shirt and brown high-heeled ankle boots that almost brought her up to average height. Her long, auburn hair fell in gentle waves over her narrow shoulders. All Kylie could think was: That can't all be natural anymore.

"Sweetie, what do you think I'm doing here?" Jill laughed falsely. Oops – she wouldn't laugh if she could see the lines that suddenly appeared around her lightly made-up, dark-green eyes. "I came to see you!"

Of course she was carrying that hefty holdall of hers. Kylie would have expected nothing else. Like David Banner of "The Incredible Hulk", Jill carried what little she owned in one bag that went everywhere with her.

Despite all the negativity she was feeling, Kylie wanted to take another step towards her mother and hug her. But there was no point in even trying. Jill Griffin didn't hug.

"Where have you been?" Jill went on.

Ooh, that was rich! This from the woman who had been out of the country for the last four years – or thirteen years, on-and-off. Every time her mother visited, Kylie wanted to scream at her, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" She had wanted to do that since she was eight years old and Jill made her first visit home after leaving. But eleven years later she still hadn't done it yet – and she wasn't going to do it now.

"I was at work," Kylie said instead.

"I've been waiting for you."

I've been waiting for you since you left me when I was six years old!

"Sorry." She didn't mean it, but she couldn't bring herself to say what was actually on her mind, because she didn't want the hassle. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Oh well, you're here now," Jill smiled in catwalk fashion. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Didn't the woman realise she had been absent from her daughter's life for thirteen years? She was talking as though she had just come from two blocks away.

"Ok," shrugged Kylie. "If you want." She opened the door and said blandly, "Come in."

"It's rather small," Jill remarked five minutes later, casting a critical eye around Kylie's average-sized bed-sitting room.

"I'm a student," shrugged Kylie. She was sitting on the bed, stroking her cat and watching her mother wander around the room. "It's all I can afford and it's all I need. It's only me and Pagan living here."

"Really?" Jill raised her immaculate eyebrows. "Still no man in your life, then?"

"Why would I want one of those?" Kylie asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Yes, they're only good for one thing," agreed Jill. "Gosh, Kylie, you're only a year younger than I was when I married your father. I must say, with all that disposable income of his, I would have thought he could afford somewhere better than this."

"Dad's not responsible for my living arrangements," argued Kylie. "If you must know he offered to help me look, but I managed to find this place all by myself. And he gives me plenty of financial support, thank you very much," she added tartly.

"Does he, honey?" Jill asked disinterestedly. "So what happened to the house, then?"

"Dad sold it last year."

"Who to?"

"Why do you care?"

"Just wondered," shrugged Jill. "I did live in that place for seven years, you know."

"If you must know" – Kylie sensed that she would be saying those four words a lot during her mother's visit – "he sold it to a very sweet married couple who were expecting their first baby. You know," she added pointedly, still stroking Pagan with a robotic movement of her right arm. "Kinda like you and Dad when you first moved in there."

"How is Steve these days?" asked Jill.

"Ok," shrugged Kylie. In truth her father wasn't the happiest man in the world at the moment, but Kylie doubted that Jill really wanted to hear any details about her ex. Then a thought struck her and she asked suspiciously, "Is that why you're here? Are you running out of money?"

"No," Jill said defensively. "I am running out of money, but that's not why I'm here. It happens a lot when you waitress your way around the world. I'll soon have more."

"You're leaving again, then?" Kylie asked quietly, surprised by how disappointed she felt.

"Of course," Jill smiled at her. "There's still plenty to see."

Even after thirteen years? Kylie shook the thought from her mind and convinced herself that she didn't care where her mother was or what she did.

"I suppose I'd better see Maddy while I'm here," Jill went on, just thinking out loud now. "Do you know where she's living, sweetie?"

Kylie shook her head. Jill's younger sister Maddy didn't bother with her niece much.

"Oh!" Jill exclaimed in sudden realisation. "I meant to say: sorry Rose died."

Kylie cast her eyes down towards her sleeping cat and asked sceptically, "Are you?"

"Don't be ridiculous," scolded Jill. "Rose and I didn't get along, but I wouldn't wish her dead. And I'm sorry it upset you so much – but you have to admit, she was no spring chicken."

"I never said she was," Kylie said darkly, her green eyes narrowing dangerously on her mother's face. "Can we talk about something else please?"

"If you like," Jill shrugged dismissively. "How's college?"

"Ok."

"Made any friends?"

"Sure."

"Good... I'd forgotten how hot New York gets this time of year."

She'd started talking about the weather. That said it all really.

"No wonder I wanted to leave this place," Jill continued. "Why did you go to college here, Kylie? It's not as though you had any family or friends to stay for – and you're a bright girl. You could have gone to school anywhere."

"So? I went to school here."

"I remember this," Jill said stiffly, with an exaggerated sigh. "You're just like your father. It's no good talking to you when you're like this. I think I'd better go out and leave you to cool off."

"Where will you be staying?" Kylie asked her mother's retreating form.

"Here."

Kylie's eyebrows shot skyward.

"Have you got a spare key?" asked Jill, turning in the doorway.

As she didn't have the energy to object, Kylie simply nodded and took a key from one of the drawers next to her bed. This she threw towards Jill, who caught it skilfully and then fallaciously smiled her gratitude.

The door to the room clicked shut. Kylie lay back on her bed and wondered why her mother should suddenly decide to come and visit her now. Jill did occasionally return to New York, most likely out of a sense of duty, but as Kylie grew older these visits had become much less frequent.

Still, Kylie supposed it was due. It had been four years. She hadn't seen her mother since she was fifteen years old. She must have changed a little since then, surely, but Jill hadn't remarked on that.

"Where are we supposed to put her?" Kylie addressed her dozing cat.

"Mmm-rrrooooww," Pagan returned irritably, rolling over onto his side in order to let Kylie know that he was trying to sleep, thank you very much.

She'll have to sleep on the floor, thought Kylie – and she went to retrieve the spare mattress that she kept for just such an emergency. Since moving in she hadn't anticipated anybody wanting to spend the night on her floor; but she kept the mattress just in case, and how she had been proved right to do so.

Role reversal, thought Kylie, as she made up a makeshift bed on the floor. Except that it had usually been her great-grandmother who did that for her – or her dad, if he was home. It had to be conceded that Jill had never been much of a mother even before she walked out. And yet, thought Kylie, here I am welcoming her back into my life.

Well... perhaps she wasn't so much welcoming her as accepting her. And it wasn't so much her life as a few days on her floor. Kylie was sure that Jill would not be staying for more than a few days. She never did.

But for some reason Kylie found herself wishing that the visit would last a little longer than it inevitably would. It didn't just mean that her mother must love her after all; it also meant that she would no longer have to endure the terrible feelings of loneliness that had suddenly struck her of late. Kylie had lived alone ever since her great-grandmother Rose Lockyer died nearly two years ago – but now, for no apparent reason, she suddenly felt that she could not bear to spend another night on her own.

x x x

Was Kylie's strange mood somehow infectious? Was that why, when Peter arrived at the Firehouse around four o'clock to take his kids home, Eduardo suddenly felt choked by a fairly sizeable lump forming in his throat? It was crazy. He had nothing particular to feel sad about – and yet, at the sight of Peter ruffling Jessica's already tousled hair and laughing with her over the now defaced bridal magazine, he could almost cry.

Eduardo cut a glance in Oscar's direction and saw that he too was looking upon the touching scene with a hint of sadness about him. That was easy enough to figure out, though: he was jealous. No matter how much Peter and Oscar loved each other, they didn't share that blood link that formed the basis of Jessica's bond with her father.

But Eduardo had absolutely no desire to be Peter's son, biological or otherwise. There was no good reason for him to feel this way; it wasn't even the right time of year for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD – best acronym ever!). It was just insane.

"Jessica Venkman, you're a vandal and I am thoroughly ashamed of you," Peter joked through his laughter. "Should we hide this from Janine, or just blame it on Slimer?"

The inexplicable gloom must be showing on Eduardo's face. When Oscar happened to glance in his direction, his own wistful little expression transformed to one of concern as he asked anxiously, "Are you ok?"

"Fine." Eduardo managed to smile. "Just wondering what's the safest way to take Kev home."

"I'll give you a lift if you like," offered Peter. "I've got the car. Obviously – or I wouldn't have offered you a lift. Hey, you," he added, reaching out to take his stepson into a one-armed hug. "I hope you've been behaving better than your sister."

That stupid, incomprehensible lump in Eduardo's throat was growing at a rate of knots. He had to swallow hard several times before he could choke out the words, "I just need to go get a glass of water, ok?"

"Ok," agreed Peter, regarding him strangely. "Uh... mind if I come with you?"

Eduardo pulled a face and asked suspiciously, "Why?"

"I could use the exercise," japed Peter, winking at the three kids as he followed Eduardo from the room.

As he filled a half-pint glass from the jug of tap water in the fridge (any sensible household keeps one of these during the summer months), Eduardo felt certain that he'd soon find out Peter's ulterior motive for wanting to go with him. And sure enough:

"How are you holding up?"

"What do you mean 'holding up'?" Eduardo asked. "What have I got to hold up about?"

"Um... well," Peter faltered. "Egon told me about the thing with your dad."

Eduardo raised a non-committal eyebrow and asked expressionlessly, "You mean the thing where everybody recently found out he's dead?"

He had to gulp down the entire glass of water the instant he uttered the words, otherwise he might get choked up. But oops – what happened if he needed to do that again? He refilled the glass, just to be on the safe side.

"Well... yeah," Peter admitted. "It's just that, since all that stuff came out, I've noticed you could cut the atmosphere around here with a knife. And maybe that's nothing to do with you, but it does seem kind of a coincidence – especially since we're all supposed to be really happy about Janine and Spengs getting hitched at last. So anyway, I just wondered if maybe you wanted to talk about it."

Eduardo shook his head forcefully, and then downed his second glass of water in one.

"I think it might help," Peter persisted.

The water jug was nearly empty. Eduardo turned his back on Peter in order to refill it at the sink and said firmly, "No. I don't want to do anything about it; don't wanna talk about it, don't wanna think about it. Comprendé?"

"No I don't comprendé," Peter returned curtly. "You're bottling up your feelings. It's called repression and it's very bad for you."

"Huh – says you," Eduardo muttered.

"Says me and Sigmund Freud actually," retorted Peter.

"So?" Eduardo turned to face him. "There's no right or wrong way to deal with your feelings. Nothing's proven – least of all Freud's bullshit."

Peter couldn't argue with that. It was true – and he didn't even feel inclined to defend Freud because he was not a Freudian psychologist. He had just hoped that mentioning a big name might persuade Eduardo round to his point of view. But of course, if Freud had his way, it might imply that Eduardo actually wanted his father dead.

"Ok, fine," Peter relented. "Do you want that lift home?"

"Yes please," Eduardo answered, politely enough, as he replaced the water jug in the fridge. "My brother would kill me if I lost Kevin on the subway or he went under the wheels of a car something."

"How unreasonable he must be," japed Peter. "Come on then. Let's get those kids home before they start taking the place over."

x x x

"Are you ok?" Beth asked kindly.

Eduardo couldn't help but smile. That question had been asked a lot in the last eleven hours. Moods were low that day, it seemed – or rather his and Kylie's moods were low. Everyone else seemed fine – particularly the soon-to-be newly-weds, as one might expect.

Truth be told, Eduardo had been feeling very down ever since Peter had brought up the subject of his late father. Just occasionally, Eduardo would be struck by the horrible thought: Oh my God, my dad's dead. It was an unpleasant side effect of his otherwise flawless coping method i.e. never thinking about his loss. But it was a rare occurrence, and worth it not to feel miserable the whole time. He would sleep fitfully that night, and then he would probably not have to go through all that again for several months.

But he also had something else on his mind: he was worried about Kylie. She had seemed particularly low over the last few days, and Eduardo had not bought her once-a-month excuse that morning. Being secretly in love with the girl, he had got to know her quite well over the last nine months, and he was confident that he could tell the difference between irrational bad moods brought on by hormones and those times when she was genuinely unhappy.

"I'm fine," he lied. For the sake of something to do, he had offered to help Beth wash up after dinner. "There's just been this real atmosphere at work lately, and I seem to have brought it home with me."

"I noticed your friend Kylie didn't seem particularly cheerful," remarked Beth. "Is she ok?"

In truth Kylie was not often particularly cheerful, but some months ago Beth had caught her on a good day – or rather a good night – when the Ghostbusters had been called out to the Rivera household while Slimer was a guest there and (of course) decided to raid their fridge. Minutes later, Carl had discovered that his kid brother had been moonlighting as a Ghostbuster. For some hours after that, it looked as though the brothers' relationship had finally hit rock bottom. But fortunately – after Eduardo had managed to rescue Kevin from a pack of trolls and then delivered a martyred and uplifting speech about how he was "proud to be a Ghostbuster" – things between Eduardo and Carl went from drastically awful back to very bad.

"Time of the month," Eduardo smiled weakly, using Kylie's ready-made excuse to satisfy his sister-in-law.

"Ah." Beth nodded her understanding. "That explains it."

After that the conversation went on to a much more comfortable topic, namely the success of Kevin's basketball team in an end-of-year match against a rival school. Beth couldn't believe her little boy was going into fifth grade already; he was growing up so fast. But of course it didn't seem so long ago that she used to chase Eduardo around his mother's house with cough mixture and a little plastic spoon.

Eduardo was really not in the mood for nostalgia. It was only a matter of time before Beth's train of thought would lead her to remember an occasion involving his father, which would undoubtedly trigger all kinds of unwanted emotions. But fortunately Eduardo had just put the last plate on the draining board, and so was able to excuse himself.

He went out of the front door and ascended the precarious metal staircase that led to his room above the garage. Once inside, Eduardo threw open a window, kicked off his shoes, took out his gold earrings and put on a Foo Fighters CD. Then he threw himself onto his bed, lay there flat on his back and carried on worrying about Kylie.

He found it quite tiring actually: worrying about somebody other than himself, which was something he had never really had to do before. Ok, so he loved his nephew and had worried about his happiness from time to time – but that was ok, because he knew that Kevin had a perfectly good set of parents to help him through whatever. That child's happiness was a concern, but it was not Eduardo's responsibility.

But Kylie... Eduardo knew that technically she was not his responsibility either. It concerned him, though, that she was in that attic bedroom all alone with her cat most nights. Who else was going to worry about whether she was all right?

x x x

Kylie had been right: she couldn't stand another night on her own. It was midnight by the time she finally took out her earrings and crawled into bed. An hour later she was still awake; so she got out of bed, made herself comfortable on the padded window-seat, opened the window a little wider and read a few chapters of _"A Clockwork Orange" _by torchlight.

"Did Dad used to take fifteen hours to cool off?" Kylie asked disinterestedly – without looking up from her book – when she heard the door opening.

"What are you going on about now?" Jill returned wearily.

"You said I was just like my father and you were going out until I cooled off." She still didn't look at her mother. "That was fifteen hours ago."

"Did I?" shrugged Jill, kicking off her boots and making a beeline for her daughter's untidy double bed. "Was it? Well, you never run out of things to do in Manhattan. Guess I lost track of time."

"I made up a mattress for you on the floor," Kylie told her, still in that same detached tone of voice.

"Come on, Kylie – be reasonable." Jill had already settled herself on the bed and closed her eyes. "You're not using it, are you?"

"I was waiting up for you," Kylie said irritably. "After you got back I was sort of hoping to be able to go to bed."

"Yeah?" Jill rolled over onto her side. "Well, there's plenty of room for two. Or is that the whole idea? Hey, wait a minute – what do you mean you were waiting up for me?" she asked, opening one eye. "Haven't you been out tonight?"

"No."

"Why the hell not?"

"Well, why should I?" Kylie retaliated.

"Because you're nineteen and on summer vacation," reasoned Jill. "You shouldn't be stuck at home reading."

Kylie no longer cared that her mother was occupying her bed; she just wanted the damn woman to go to sleep. Now in serious danger of losing her temper, she turned her head to look out onto the dimly lit street below. There was a slight breeze trickling through the open window, which was undoubtedly a good thing; there was no way Kylie could have controlled her temper if the unbearably hot weather had continued through the night.

"What's the matter with you anyway?" Jill murmured sleepily. "You never used to be this uptight."

"When?" Kylie demanded hotly, turning her head sharply to look at her mother. "When did I never used to be this uptight?"

"Oh... you know," yawned Jill. "When I was living at home."

"Jill, you lived at home until I was six!" Kylie yelled furiously. "Strange as it may sound, I've changed since I was six! You don't even know me at all, do you!"

Jill didn't even flinch. She was asleep. Typical. Completely bloody typical. Kylie stared at her, absolutely incensed. She could practically feel the veins popping out of her head. She had wanted to hug her mother that morning, but now she wondered how the thought could ever have occurred to her. Ten years ago she had wanted nothing more than for her mum to come home and just hold her. But she'd realised since then what Jill was really like. Any such feelings should have ended long ago.

Until now curled up asleep on the mattress on the floor, Pagan suddenly started to hiss. At first Kylie thought it must be because he had discovered a virtual stranger on the bed that the two of them usually shared. Like many cats, Pagan was strongly averse to anything different. If he discovered something out of place and didn't decide to sit on it (hence falling asleep on the mattress that night), he nearly always hissed at it instead.

But when Kylie looked around the room for her cat, she saw that he hadn't budged from the mattress and he wasn't even facing Jill's direction. He was crouching as though ready to pounce, his tail wagging ominously, ears down and every hair on his back and neck standing erect.

"Great," muttered Kylie, following her cat's intense stare to the floor underneath her desk. "What is, Pagy? Rodent or bird?"

She hoped it was a bird. Birds were considerably slower than most rodents were, and generally quite happy to fly out of the window with enough encouragement.

Pagan hissed again. He didn't move, which worried Kylie slightly. He was usually quite quick to start a game of cat and mouse with miniature intruders.

Resolving not to panic, Kylie dropped to her hands and knees and peered under the desk – in much the same manner as Pagan was doing. Now that was creepy: nothing there. Kind of like "The Raven", thought Kylie – but she decided not to worry too much as she remembered Bart Simpson's comment on that particular literary work: "You know what would have been scarier that nothing? ... Anything!"

But Kylie's night of unrest did not end there. After she had crawled onto the mattress and fallen asleep, she was troubled by dreams. Hardly surprising really that these dreams were all about her mother's sheer inadequacy – although Kylie couldn't remember ever having dreams like them before. And after Pagan's short stint of psychosis, she couldn't help worrying that all was not well in her little attic bedroom.

x x x

Oh dear. Kylie still didn't look any happier when Eduardo saw her the next morning. She looked a little worried actually, as she fastened a ghost trap to her back and pulled her PKE meter out of her locker.

"Don't say we've had a call already," Eduardo moaned.

"No, we haven't," Kylie returned disinterestedly, not bothering to look at him. "I'm just going to make sure there aren't any ghosts in my room."

Eduardo pulled a face and asked, "Why would there be ghosts in your room?"

"There probably aren't," shrugged Kylie. "But Pagan went berserk at about three o'clock in the morning. And then I had these kind of... dreams."

"What kind of dreams?" Eduardo asked, concerned.

"I don't know. Sort of like flashbacks, I suppose. It's probably nothing," and she slammed her locker shut in a very final gesture.

"Flashbacks?" Eduardo repeated. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. About my mom. Just stuff that happened with her once upon a time... not very nice stuff if you must know. Like when she forgot to pick me up from school one time. And the day I went home with my dad and she was – never mind."

Kylie had honestly forgotten in those few seconds that she had an audience, and realised just in time that she didn't want to talk to Eduardo about the day she got home from school to find that her mother had left – along with a large selection of her belongings. (She took everything else with her at a later date: one day when she popped back for five minutes to say goodbye and sorry, but she wasn't ever coming home – and please sign these divorce papers, Steve.)

"Are you ok?" asked Eduardo. Oops – there was that question again. But he had to ask. She didn't look ok at all.

"Sure," shrugged Kylie, sounding anything but ok.

"You're not really going on your own, are you?"

"Sure," she said again. "Why the hell not?"

"Because what if there actually is something there?"

"What if?" She indicated her proton pistol. "I've already told you it's probably nothing. And besides, my mom might be there."

Just as she might find twenty dollars lying in the street. Neither event seemed likely, but there was an outside chance.

"You've got your mom staying?" asked Eduardo. Thank goodness for that. Kylie did have somebody else to worry about her after all. Unless this mother of hers was the reason for her recent unhappiness. Considering those telltale dreams she mentioned...

"Yeah," Kylie interrupted his thoughts. "Nice that she still knows I exist, I suppose."

She was almost confiding in him. Eduardo wondered whether she really wanted to tell him something – or perhaps that was just her strange sense of humour. Either way he wasn't happy about letting her go home alone to potential demons and a mother that seemed to be making her miserable. So he blurted out, before he could even think of stopping himself, "I'm going with you."

"What?"

"Please," Eduardo begged. Best to change tack; pushiness got you nowhere with Kylie Griffin. "It'd make me feel better."

"What do you mean 'feel better'?" demanded Kylie. "You don't have to worry about me, Eduardo."

"Yeah?" Sorry, Ky; can't help it. "Well, I'm going with you anyway. It'd be interesting to see your mom."

"She probably won't be there," mumbled Kylie.

"Really?" Eduardo opened his locker and took out his proton pack. "Some visit."

"Shut up."

"Oh, hey, don't get like that," Eduardo said defensively. "I was only saying - "

"Well don't," snapped Kylie. "You've never even met my mother so you have no right to judge her – ok?"

"Um... ok," Eduardo answered sheepishly.

"Good. Now if you're coming, come on," Kylie said tartly, marching purposefully towards the door.

x x x

"I like your room."

"It's not like you've never been here before, Eduardo."

"Yeah, but I was a little distracted then. I'd just been magically transported into the body of your cat," Eduardo reminded her. "Seriously, Ky, this place is cool. I like the sloping walls. Very classy."

"We're inside a roof," Kylie pointed out.

"Yeah, that'll be why. Nice décor too." He was looking at a piece of conceptual portraiture on one of the aforementioned sloping walls. "I have a biker chick on my wall."

Eduardo was in her room. It shouldn't feel weird, but it did. Kylie was making a conscious effort not to look at the bed, which she realised was utterly ridiculous. She'd do better to act naturally. It was going to be difficult to convince her guest that when she was alone in her room she stood perfectly still with her back to her bed.

"Oh, right, the desk," said Eduardo, following her gaze. Great – he didn't think what she was doing was at all odd. "Do you want to crawl underneath or shall I?"

"Um... you do it," faltered Kylie. Honestly, why was she feeling so damn flustered?

"Right." He winked at her. "Shoulda known you wouldn't trust me not to stare at your ass."

Kylie couldn't help but think: I'm not sure I trust myself not to stare at yours. Fortunately, however, she managed to stop herself from saying it out loud.

"Ooh – Pagan's under here," Eduardo's voice echoed out from under the desk.

"Anything else?" asked Kylie – who, by the way, was failing utterly in her attempt not to stare.

"Trace readings," Eduardo reported. "There was something here all right – and quite recently too."

"More recently than three o'clock in the morning?"

Eduardo couldn't be sure about that. But before he had a chance to say so, he heard the door open and close. This must either mean that Kylie had decided to walk off and leave him crawling around underneath her desk, or that the mysterious Ms. Griffin had arrived.

"Oh, Kylie, you should have left your scrunchy on the doorknob," Eduardo heard an unfamiliar female voice declare in mischievous tones. "Gotta tell ya though, honey: good choice. Or at least he looks pretty good from this angle."

Wow. This was weird. He was being ogled by Kylie's mother. He felt a little silly too: nobody really wanted to be discovered on hands and knees with their back end sticking out from underneath a desk.

Eduardo crawled backwards until he saw daylight, and then got to his feet and dusted himself off. Ok – time to look at Old Mother Griffin. Ah – less of the old, apparently. She couldn't be more than about forty-five. She looked younger than that, in fact; but she probably wasn't less than forty, given her daughter's age.

And – wow – she looked exactly like Kylie. If you changed the clothes and makeup – and replaced the auburn hair with black, obviously – she could be Kylie in twenty years' time. Same green eyes; same pert, upturned nose; same wide mouth; same figure... the resemblance was just uncanny.

Eduardo shook himself out of it. It wasn't that incredible – or at least not so incredible that he had to stand and gawp at them like that. They were mother and daughter; it was only natural that they should look similar.

"Hey... um..." Eduardo faltered. What exactly was he supposed to call this woman?

"Jill," she smiled winningly at him.

"Jill." Ok. "Where exactly did you go last night?"

"Why do you want to know that?" Kylie asked sharply.

"She may have brought it home with her," Eduardo pointed out.

"Brought what home with me?" Jill asked reasonably.

"Nothing. We're not sure," Kylie said quickly. "So, come on, where did you go?"

"I don't know. All kinds of places," Jill shrugged disinterestedly. "I was in this bar a couple of blocks away most of the night. Then I went and got a pizza with some guy... took in a show... does it really matter?"

"Probably not," muttered Kylie.

"So." Jill turned away from her daughter and cast a critical eye over the length of Eduardo's body. "Who's this?"

"He's Eduardo," answered Kylie. "He's just somebody I work with."

"Is that all you do together?" Jill asked brashly.

"We go to class together too," Kylie told her. "Anyway, why do you care?"

"Just taking an interest in your life, honey," Jill smiled falsely. "I'll leave you to it, then. Bye!"

"Where are you going now?" Kylie asked incredulously.

"I've got a date," answered Jill.

Kylie looked doubtful as she pointed out, "But it's nine thirty in the morning."

"Right," Jill grinned at her. "Shopping."

Kylie cocked an eyebrow. "I thought you were running out of money."

"I was. But like I say, everywhere needs waitresses and bar staff. See you later, then," and she was gone. Again.

"She seems nice," Eduardo remarked.

"Yes, I know she does," Kylie muttered darkly. "But never mind about her. We're supposed to be demon hunting, remember?"

"Right," Eduardo nodded, making a point of looking at his PKE meter. "I think it's still in the room."

"Really?" Kylie instinctively tightened her grip on her proton pistol. "Where?"

"Um..." Eduardo followed the lead of his PKE meter. "Not sure. Under the bed?"

Yikes – was she blushing? There was no reason for a simple three-letter word from Eduardo's lips to provoke such an extreme reaction, but Kylie reasoned that her mother was to blame for this. Being a redhead, Jill blushed easily. Being the daughter of a redhead, Kylie blushed easily too – and at the silliest things, it seemed.

She was distracted from these mutinous thoughts, however, when she and Eduardo suddenly had to jump apart to clear a path for Pagan, who had made an impulsive decision to shoot out from underneath the desk at lightning speed. He then scrabbled to an awkward halt in the small gap between the bed and the floor. The journey – practically the entire length of the room – took him all of half a second. Eduardo and Kylie both stared at his wagging tail where it snaked out from underneath the bed. They were understandably surprised, and for several seconds neither of them could think of anything to say.

"Does he do that often?" Eduardo asked at last.

"Only when he sees a mouse."

"WHAT?" cried Eduardo, looking very much as though he was thinking about jumping onto Kylie's desk. "You got mice in here?"

"Hardly ever. And don't be such a baby," Kylie scolded. "Mice can't hurt you. Well," she added, "not really."

"No?" Eduardo challenged. "They can hurt you a helluva lot more than maggots can!"

Kylie was about to tell him to shut up – but not before pointing out that she had far fewer irrational fears than he did. However they were both stunned into silence when they heard a high-pitched female voice from somewhere in the vicinity of the bed squealing, in terrified tones, "Put me down, you cumbersome great creature! Aah! It hurts!"

"Yes, I can imagine it would," Kylie muttered, just audibly, when she saw the tiny person kicking and thrashing about inside her cat's firmly clamped jaws. "Pagan, come here."

The black-and-white cat trotted obediently over to his mistress and laid his quarry at her feet in offering. Kylie crouched to get a closer look at the tiny struggling creature, which was about the size of your average household hamster. Size aside, however, she looked very human – and sort of tribal. She had fairly dark skin: somewhere between Eduardo and Roland on the spectrum. Her long black hair grew wild and unkempt, and her narrow face was painted with what looked suspiciously like blood. As for what was spurting alarmingly from the two puncture wounds in her naked chest and stomach – well, that was definitely blood.

"Eww!" was all Eduardo had to say, before taking several steps away from the tiny woman. Well, he might as well try not to let her blood get all over his jeans and shoes.

"Your wretched animal has killed me!" the little woman wailed.

"Yeah? Well, maybe you shouldn't have snuck into my room," Kylie retaliated, taking a PKE reading of her tiny visitor as she spoke. Wow – this was the source of the trace readings all right. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"I am here to help you, you stupid girl!" squeaked the woman. "To avenge you!"

Kylie cocked an eyebrow and repeated questioningly, "Avenge me?"

"Forgive me," panted the demon. "I should not have raised my voice to you. Oh, but it is too late for me! Alas!" She was dribbling blood from her mouth now, and looking distinctly pale. "Fear not, good woman, for another will take my place. We are endless – and then my mistress shall avenge you."

"What do you mean 'avenge' me?" demanded Kylie. "And who's this mistress of yours?"

"I... I cannot," the tiny woman gasped. "And now... with my dying breath... I wish you... justice!" she squeaked, in the same moment that she slumped lifeless onto the floor.

"Eww!" Eduardo exclaimed again. "She died!"

"What was she twittering on about?" Kylie frowned crossly at the miniature corpse. "She wishes me justice; she's going to avenge me... was she crazy or something?"

"Probably," shrugged Eduardo. "So what do you want to do about it? Eww!" he added, as Kylie lifted the tiny corpse by the hair and held it up in front of her face.

"I don't know," shrugged Kylie. "Throw it in the trash?"

"Well that doesn't sound like a very good idea."

"Why not? She's dead," Kylie pointed out. "It was probably nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to worry about?" Eduardo echoed incredulously. "Kylie, you're being stalked by tiny naked women."

"Sound good to you, does it?" Kylie smiled dryly. Then she hastily went on, "It was only one tiny naked woman. Who says there's going to be more?"

"She does," Eduardo reminded her. "Weren't you listening? 'Another will take my place'; 'We are endless'; 'My mistress shall avenge you'..."

"She was probably making all that up," Kylie insisted. "Demons do that sometimes. Remember Akira? 'I shall take you down into the fiery depths with me!'" she mimicked the demon's overdramatic tones. "And nothing ever came of it. But I suppose we could give this little lady to Egon and ask him what he makes of it."

"Egon," Eduardo repeated sardonically, rolling his eyes and folding his arms across his chest in a gesture of insolence. "Why do you gotta go running to him every time you want something doing?"

"Well, do you want to try and figure out what this is?" Kylie shot back angrily, elevating her right arm to hold the dangling corpse in front of Eduardo's nose.

"Eww!" he said for the fourth time, taking another step back. "Don't point that thing at me!"

"Ok, well, you don't want me to throw it out – so let's take it to Egon!"

"Is that how you make all your decisions?" Eduardo asked nastily. "Anything you deem worth bothering about you take to Egon?"

"What the hell are you having a pop at Egon for?" demanded Kylie. "Are you jealous – is that it? Do you think I still have a crush on him?"

"Do you?" Eduardo couldn't help but ask.

"Do you care?"

"No." Yes. "I just think it's pathetic, the way you crawl around licking his boots and worshipping the ground he walks on. He's only human, Kylie, same as you and me."

"So what are saying – you've never emulated anybody?"

"No I haven't." Wonder if she thinks I don't know what "emulate" means. Well, now she knows better. "I don't wanna be like anybody but myself."

"Well, there's your first mistake," Kylie retorted.

"And neither should you," Eduardo went on, pretending not to have heard her. "Egon's no better than you, and neither is anybody else. If you spend your life trying to be somebody you're not, you're living a lie."

"This is getting very deep for you, Eduardo," Kylie remarked scathingly. "A moment ago I was just pathetic."

"Yeah." The way she was looking at him – her green eyes narrow with anger and her upper lip curled with blatant dislike – broke his heart. "You still are."

This wasn't what he should be saying. Eduardo knew he should be saying what he was thinking: Kylie didn't have to emulate anybody. She was perfect the way that she was. That was why he loved her, damn it!

"If I'm so pathetic, why were you so desperate to help me?" challenged Kylie. "Even you're not dumb enough to think you'd get anywhere just be getting me on my own."

"I was worried about you," Eduardo told her truthfully.

"Were you?"

"Yes."

"So why come here to help and then start putting me down?"

"Oh, sorry, you're right," Eduardo said sarcastically. "Because you've just been lovely to me lately, haven't you. I tried being nice to you, Kylie, in case you hadn't noticed – in spite of the fact that you went back to treating me like shit after I stopped freaking out about my dead dad."

_What did you say that for, you complete moron? Forget about him – you can't let her see you cry. Keep yelling at her if you have to..._

"And for what?" Eduardo ploughed on, suppressing the lump that was rising in his throat. "You just threw it back in my face!"

She was thick-skinned, and she certainly didn't care what he thought. He couldn't really be upsetting her, surely. And at least he was right – or he believed he was right. He wasn't doing this unjustly. If he hurt her feelings, it would serve her right for the pounding she had given his over the last few months.

"Forget it," Kylie asserted, shaking her head. She wasn't going to apologise to him. "This is stupid, and none of it's even relevant. All that matters is Egon can figure out what madam here was doing in my room a helluva lot quicker than I can. So let's take it to him, ok?"

"Sure," Eduardo shrugged. He wasn't going to apologise either – although he did rather wish that he hadn't called her pathetic.

Twice.

x x x

"Oh good, you're here." Kylie marched over to the desk where Egon was sitting and dumped the contents of her shoulder bag in front of him. "Can you take a look at this for me please?"

"Do I have to?" asked Egon, wrinkling his nose in disgust. The miniature corpse not only looked repugnant; it was already beginning to smell.

"Please," Kylie smiled at him. "It's not very nice, I know, but I'd kind of like to know what it was doing under my furniture. And besides, it might take your mind off wedding stress for a while," she added brightly.

"Is your cat responsible for this?" Egon enquired, peering at the deep, blood-soaked wounds in the tiny woman's chest and belly.

"Yeah. She didn't die instantly, though. Actually she said a couple of things to me first."

"Really?" Egon asked nonchalantly. "What?"

"She said that after she died another would take her place, and then her mistress – their mistress, she actually said – would avenge me. And she wished me justice."

"Funny sort of thing to wish somebody," remarked Egon.

"Yes, I know."

"Anything else I should know?"

"I had some funny sort of dreams last night," Kylie told him. "It was probably nothing, but maybe you can tell me if she was responsible."

"All right," agreed Egon, already reaching for his microscope. "I'll see what I can do."

x x x

When Kylie reached the lockers to put away her equipment, Eduardo was right in the middle of changing his t-shirt. Kylie couldn't help but stare at him. Must be the heat, she told herself – or else it was this whole Jill thing. She conveniently forgot all the previous occasions that she had felt compelled to look at Eduardo like that.

"Sorry if I upset you," he said, as soon as he saw her.

"You didn't upset me," shrugged Kylie. "I don't care what anybody thinks about me – least of all you."

"Good. It doesn't matter what I think."

"No."

"I didn't mean it, though."

"Which part?" asked Kylie.

"When I said you were pathetic," Eduardo expanded. "I don't really think that – not that you care, of course. But I meant it when I said you needn't aspire to be like Egon. Personally I like you the way you are."

Both of Kylie's eyebrows shot skyward as she asked in surprise, "You like me?"

"Well, you know what I mean," Eduardo returned with a shrug. "Sorry."

Oh, what the hell? "I'm sorry too – for not being as nice to you as I perhaps could have been, that is. I had actually noticed that you've been nice to me lately. Kinda made me wonder if you had an ulterior motive, if you wanna know the truth," Kylie laughed awkwardly.

"Oh, I see. Is that why you were so reluctant to take me home with you?" asked Eduardo.

"Something like that," Kylie answered with a small smile. "Anyway, forget it. Egon's working on the late Ms. Demon."

"Maybe this afternoon you should go home and check there isn't another one," Eduardo suggested.

"Yeah," Kylie sighed wearily. "I just can't seem to decide whether I'd rather find another demon there or my mom. Doesn't make much odds, I suppose."

Oh dear. Poor Kylie. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Ha!" scoffed Kylie. "You talk? Properly, I mean. Not just the garbage you usually come out with."

"I can do."

"Not about your own problems."

"I don't deny it," Eduardo said soberly. "But if you want to talk about yours I'll listen."

Kylie looked up into his dark-brown eyes (ooh – sexy eyes) and saw at once that he meant every word. Feeling slightly confused, she cocked her head to one side and asked, "When did we get so chummy all of a sudden?"

One day he was just going to give in to that urge to kiss her...

"You never could answer a straight question," Eduardo returned, smiling slightly. "Do you want to tell me about it or not?"

Kylie shook her head. She had learnt a long time ago not to let herself become emotionally dependant on anyone. If Eduardo became her confidant, he'd probably either leave New York, disappear without a trace or die, knowing her luck.

"Thanks," she smiled weakly. "But if anyone can understand not wanting to talk it should be you."

He nodded and said, "Yeah. I can understand that."

Well, that was real communication. She had almost confided her emotions to him. Almost. That was progress, wasn't it?

x x x

Kylie certainly wasn't going to let Egon do all the work. So she pulled some books off some shelves and made herself comfortable on the sofa with them, even though she had practically nothing to go on. Still, the thick paperback that claimed to be all about fairy folk seemed a good place to start. Kylie opened it on the back page and started to skim-read the index.

"Wotcha readin'?" Garrett asked irritatingly from an adjacent armchair.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Kylie returned irritably.

"Better than bothering you?" Garrett looked comically down at the origami crocodile he had just made from a flier advertising pizza. "Nope. It was a lot more fun yesterday when those kids were here."

"I don't like kids," Kylie said expressionlessly, not looking up from her book.

"What, not even those kids?" Garrett asked incredulously. "Come on, Ky – Oscar and Jessica are cool."

"I'm trying to read, Garrett."

"So what are you reading?" Garrett went back to his original question.

"It's a book about fairies, ok?" Kylie snapped impatiently. Then she added in disgruntled tones, "Where is everybody anyway?"

"Egon's around," replied Garrett. "Slimer's probably in the kitchen. Janine went to the bank. Roland's driving his kid brothers and sister all over the city for various reasons. Haven't seen Eddie all day. Oh, wait – there he is."

"Want a hand?" Eduardo asked, as soon as he saw that Kylie had her nose buried in a book.

She didn't say anything. She just looked at him blankly.

"Hey, I gotta do something to fill in all this time," Eduardo pointed out. "Ok if I put some music on?"

"Sure," Kylie shrugged disinterestedly – so Eduardo selected _"Nu-Clear Sounds" _(the current Ash album) from the untidy pile of CDs on the table and fed it to the CD player. After a few seconds the inspirational, pro-youth song _"Wildsurf"_ filled the silence.

"That band is so on the way out," Garrett forecast.

"Yeah?" Eduardo slipped the CD case over in his hand to skim-read the track list. "If that's true Oscar will be bummed. So how are you getting on, Ky?"

"She didn't give me much to go on," Kylie complained.

"Who didn't?" Garrett asked interestedly.

"Just some demon in my room," Kylie answered dismissively. "You know, I don't think she was a fairy or a sprite or anything like that. I mean yeah, she was pretty small – but bearing in mind what she said, maybe I'd do better to start researching minions." She threw her book to one side and selected another.

"Uh... Kylie," Eduardo ventured tentatively. "Do you suppose maybe she was to do with...?"

"What?"

"Your guest," Eduardo finished. He had no way of knowing how much Kylie would want disclosed to Garrett, so he tried to be euphemistic.

"Oh." Kylie's expression darkened. "You mean like a kind of mom-demon or something?"

"Just a thought."

"God, I hope not." Kylie shook her head despairingly. "That'd be all I need."

"Is this supposed to be going over my head?" Garrett chimed in. "Cos it kinda is."

"Yes," Kylie answered at once. "At least for the moment."

"Ah." Garrett nodded his understanding (such as it was) – and then his blue eyes flickered momentarily on Eduardo's face.

"What?" Eduardo snapped, noticing the look at once.

"Nothing," Garrett smiled slightly. "Eddie, could you please help me to the bathroom?"

"Help?" Eduardo elevated his eyebrows with surprise and suspicion. "Help _you_, you mean? Wow – that'll do wonders for your anti-helplessness campaign."

"Hey, I just completed a year at college without anybody's help," Garrett retorted. "So I think I'm entitled to a little push, don't you?"

"Well, if you're sure," Eduardo relented, moving towards the wheelchair as Garrett hoisted himself into it. "Just as long as you leave me at the bathroom door. Do you want me to turn the music off, Ky?"

He was being nice again, Kylie noticed. And after their little chat downstairs, she really had no excuse not to be nice back.

"No thanks," she said – and she even looked up from her book to smile at him. "But could you please put this track on repeat? It's a feel-good song, and anything that might cheer me up has got to be worth a try."

Eduardo grabbed the handles on the back of Garrett's chair, wheeled his friend towards the door and hit the REPEAT button on the CD player as he passed it. However Garrett took control of the chair the moment they were out of the room and yanked himself free of Eduardo's grip.

"I knew it," scowled Eduardo. "So what are we really doing out here? And before you ask, I'm not going to tell you anything Kylie doesn't want you to know."

"Screw that." Garrett flapped his hand around dismissively. "I don't want to know Kylie's deep dark secrets. I only want to know how you came to be on in them."

"I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," shrugged Eduardo. "She needed a hand and I happened to be there."

"A hand, huh?" Garrett repeated sceptically, cocking a suggestive eyebrow.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" demanded Eduardo.

"Nothing, Eddie, nothing," Garrett grinned mischievously. "So did you tell her you love her yet?"

"WHAT?"

"That's a no." Garrett shook his head despairingly. "Now this is just my opinion, Eddie, but I do think you oughtta do it sooner rather than later – and I mean like before she marries somebody else. Look what happened with Egon and Janine. And with Dr. V, come to that," he added thoughtfully. "Oscar isn't even his."

"Not so you'd notice," Eduardo pointed out.

"No-o," Garrett agreed, "but you might as well do it before Kylie has somebody else's baby as wait 'til after."

"I don't think that's gonna happen. Kylie probably doesn't even want kids," Eduardo frowned thoughtfully. "She doesn't seem to like them much."

"Yeah, she just told me as much." Garrett abandoned his jovial tone and his face clouded over with concern. "Is that going to be a problem for you? I mean, I've seen you with Kevin," he went on. "And if I had to guess, I'd say you wanted some of your own someday."

"Yeah, I guess I do," Eduardo agreed, his expression turning dream-like as he drifted off into fantasy. "Just one would do me, though. No need to make the poor kid's life miserable by bringing brothers into it. Oh, hey, wait a minute!" He plummeted back to reality with a jolt. "Why am I even having this conversation? I am not in love with Kylie!" He really had no qualms about lying to Garrett.

"Oh, ok," Garrett said coolly, his tone of voice deliberately letting Eduardo know that he did not believe a word of it. And with that he started to steer himself back towards the sitting room, where _"Wildsurf"_ had just begun its second run.

x x x

"Right," Egon began, as soon as he had entered the sitting room and spotted Kylie on the sofa. "I'll tell you what I can. That creature was a she-demon, almost definitely in the service of a god or a goddess – I'd say of one of the Eastern religions, probably Hinduism, judging by her appearance as much as what I found while I was studying her corpse. And she was definitely a product of evil. I'm afraid I can't tell you what she was doing in your room, but if I were you I'd take her at her word and expect another just like her to take her place. You say she spoke to you?"

"Yes," answered Kylie.

"Hmm. Fascinating. Then you can probably expect to be able to talk with her replacement. If I were you, Kylie, I'd go home and trap it, and then you might be able to interrogate it. It seems fairly safe to assume that this mistress of theirs is planning something for you, in which case we need to find out what it is so we can stop it. Sorry I can't be of more help."

"What about the dreams? Can you tell if she was responsible?"

"Anything's possible," Egon replied. "On her own she was probably near powerless, but I daresay she could have done anything this mistress of hers allowed."

x x x

"Pagan seems fine," Eduardo was quick to point out.

Kylie glanced at the black-and-white cat asleep on her bed and asked irritably, "So?"

"Well, he was very on edge while there was a little demon in the room," Eduardo reminded her. "If there was another one here now, you'd think that would bother him."

"I suppose you're right," sighed Kylie, dumping the ghost trap and her PKE meter noisily onto the desk.

Pagan's left ear twitched and he looked up, blinking a few times and gazing around the room with a puzzled frown of disapproval.

"Sorry, Pagy," Kylie apologised, making her way over to the bed and stroking the disgruntled cat. "You don't like me being in and out all day, do you – and I suppose Jill's been doing it too. Ingrate. So anyway – what shall we do now, Eduardo?" she asked. "Hit the books? Egon did give us something to go on."

Eduardo cut a glance at the copious contents of Kylie's bookcase and imagined what it would be like to try and read through them all. Not exactly how he had planned to spend his summer holidays. In fact he would far rather be doing what Pagan was doing: stretching blissfully across Kylie's bed under the manipulations of her loving touch.

"Ok," Eduardo agreed huskily. Yikes – not a good idea to think like that and talk at the same time. He shook his head clear and went over to the bookcase, where he started to scan the titles on the books' spines. "Ooh – perfect: 'Dark Gods and Goddesses of the Eastern Cultures'."

"I'd forgotten I had that," said Kylie.

She looked at Eduardo. He was standing up, now holding the hefty hardback in his left hand and flicking through the yellowed pages the with his right. Nodding towards the window-seat opposite the bed, Kylie said invitingly, "Sit down."

"Ok." Eduardo forgot his manners and kicked off his shoes as he sat down, bringing his feet up onto the pinstriped fabric with him and leaning back against the straight, narrow wall of the bay window. "Thanks. Hey – good view," he remarked.

"It gets boring after a while," Kylie told him, with a small shrug.

"Yeah? It's better than my view – but then I've only got one garage underneath my place. How many storeys is this building?"

"Four," answered Kylie. "Five including this one. So what does the book think?"

"It's difficult to know where to start," Eduardo frowned thoughtfully at the index page. Wow, he really must love Kylie, because he wouldn't do this for anyone. "Egon said Hinduism, right?"

"Yes."

He flicked back a couple of hundred pages. "Wow. They've got about ten gods for every day of the week."

"It's definitely a woman," Kylie reminded him. "And for lack of another motive she might be here about my mother."

"Wow, what a coincidence," Eduardo smiled slightly, looking down onto the street below. "Guess who just got back. Wow – she wasn't kidding when she said she was going shopping."

"Oh great." Rolling her eyes, Kylie got up from the bed and went to stand by the window. "And to think she wouldn't even buy me an ice-cream after I had my in-growing toenail done."

"How old were you then?" Eduardo asked interestedly.

"Four."

"Kevin had an in-growing toenail when he was five," Eduardo started to reminisce. "Carlos bought him the biggest chocolate bar known to man and Beth bought him a bumper-pack of Junior Aspirin – for all the good it did. The pain was so bad it kept him up crying all night. I lived with my mom then – but apparently they had to take him into bed with them and tell him hundreds of stories to take his mind off it."

"My dad was at some overnight work thing in Brooklyn," Kylie recalled sadly. "It was only me and my mom in the house. When the pain got unbearable I went to find her; she just rolled over in bed and told me not to be such a baby."

Eduardo rolled his head on the narrow wall, turning it away from the window to look dismally up at her. His dark eyes were wide with sympathy as he said quietly, "That's awful, Ky."

"Yeah, well." Kylie feigned indifference, desperately blinking back tears. "It doesn't matter now."

"Sure it does."

His brow furrowed with concern, Eduardo swivelled round on the window seat and lowered his feet to the floor. Then he gently took hold of Kylie's bony wrist and carefully pulled her onto the seat next to him. She avoided his eye as he looked searchingly into her face and asked rhetorically, "Jeez, Kylie, what has that woman done to you?"

Kylie didn't know what to say. She just shook her head vigorously, trying to convince herself that it would be a very bad idea to look into his eyes. She wanted to, though. And she wanted him to keep on circling the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb like that. Hell, she even wanted to kiss him – and she knew that if she looked at him, she wouldn't be able to stop herself. But those gorgeous, dark-brown eyes of his were just so compelling – drawing her face up to his like a magnet...

"Oh, hi. Are you still here?"

Jill kicked the door shut behind her and then dumped all of her shopping bags onto Kylie's bed. Pagan didn't like that at all, and he started beating the nearest bag vehemently with his tail.

Not wanting to give her mother any more strange ideas, Kylie snatched her hand sharply away from Eduardo's. She felt like she had been woken suddenly in the middle of a glorious dream – and if she had been able to bring herself to look at Eduardo, she would have seen from his expression that he was feeling similarly cheated.

But they really had picked their moment badly. Both of them had known that Jill would be walking through that door in a matter of seconds. Frankly, Kylie thought, this was one occasion when she had no right to resent her mother's actions.

She still did, though.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I, honey?" Jill asked distractedly, riffling through what was left of the dollar bills in her wallet.

"Just a little study session," Eduardo smiled falsely. He still had the thick volume tucked under his right arm.

"Study?" Jill pulled a face. "Sweetie, when I was still in school the only thing we studied this time of year was anatomy."

"Mom, please!" fumed Kylie. "Don't you ever just -?"

"Hey, wait a minute," Eduardo interrupted, suddenly jumping to his feet and striding quickly across the room towards the desk. "Something's happening over here, Kylie."

Kylie cleared the distance between the window-seat and the desk in two bounds and scooped her twittering PKE meter into her hand. She then turned quickly on her heel and started to follow the reading towards the bed.

"Don't tell me," Eduardo deadpanned, with a humourless smile. "It's in one of those bags."

"Yeah." Kylie's eyes dropped to the bag that Pagan was slashing at with his tail. "Ralph Lauren, I think."

She picked up the bag in question and looked inside; then she held it out at arm's length. There was another she-demon in there all right, virtually identical in appearance to the last – and it evidently did not want to be caught. Before Kylie could react, the little woman had jumped nimbly from the bag and started to run speedily towards the desk.

Fortunately Eduardo was there to intercept the she-demon's path. With impressive speed, he picked up the trap on the desk just as Pagan leapt swiftly down from the bed and started to pursue the tiny woman. When the trap opened and a stream of bright yellow light erupted from it, sucking the she-demon inside, Pagan hissed and turned sharply away.

"Pagan!" exclaimed Kylie, grabbing the cat before he had a chance to slink under the bed. "Are you ok?"

She put her hands under the cat's armpits and held him up in front of her face, looking searchingly into his narrow green eyes. Pagan blinked a couple of times and then frowned at her as if to say: What the hell was THAT? At any rate the blast didn't seem to have affected him too badly.

"Is he all right?" Eduardo asked anxiously. Kylie would never forgive him if he'd blinded her precious cat.

"Yes, I think so." Kylie let Pagan gently down onto the bed. "Guess we'd better take this little lady back to the Firehouse, then."

"What just happened?" Jill asked, smiling bemusedly at Eduardo.

"Nothing," Kylie jumped in hastily, before Eduardo had a chance to say anything. "Come on, Eduardo – let's go," and she marched tenaciously towards the door.

"Um... ok," Eduardo meekly agreed, sparing one more quick glance in Jill's direction. She was frowning after Kylie, shaking her head as though her daughter had just announced that she wasn't in the mood for studying – she was going out clubbing instead.

"Are you coming?" snapped Kylie.

Eduardo secured his grip on the trap and then followed her through the door, easing it shut behind him. With all the excitement over, he couldn't help but think about that near-moment with Kylie. _Great timing_, he thought bitterly. How many more chances like that was he going to get?

x x x

"Did you get it?" asked Egon.

Clutching the demon-filled ghost trap tightly to her chest, Kylie nodded mutely.

"Right," Egon nodded officiously, taking a small tripod and what looked like a CD from his desk. "Now, you remember when you and Roland talked to the Grundle in the ecto-containment field?"

Kylie nodded again.

"I've been working on this for a while now, but I finished it this morning just for you."

"Oh." Kylie smiled slightly. "Thanks."

"It's like the containment field you and Roland used on the Grundle, only considerably smaller. It's very simple. Just place the disc on top of the tripod like so;" – Egon demonstrated – "position the trap underneath, open it and your she-demon should be confined in a force field projected above the disc."

"Should she?" Kylie asked sceptically.

"Yes, she should," Egon deadpanned. "But if it doesn't work – well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just close the trap when you've finished talking to her – ok? – and then put her in the containment unit."

Kylie nodded to show that she understood. Then she took the tripod and the CD into one hand and carried them, along with the trap, down to the basement where Eduardo was waiting for her.

"Why are we doing this down here?" Eduardo asked, watching Kylie as she crouched near the floor and set up the tripod.

"Privacy," she answered blandly, not looking up. "I seem to have let you become involved in all this, but depending on what this girl has to say I might not want anyone else to know about it. Ok – are you ready?"

"Sure," shrugged Eduardo.

"Great," Kylie half-smiled dryly, positioning her thumb over the button that would open the trap. "Let's do this thing."

She stood upright and took two steps back as the trap erupted in a blaze of blinding light. When Eduardo and Kylie returned their eyes to the strange little setup the floor, their she-demon was suspended above Egon's CD in a halo of electric-blue light.

"Hey, this girl's pretty hot," Eduardo remarked.

"Honestly, you and your one-track mind." Kylie rolled her eyes; then she turned her attention back to her captive and demanded threateningly, "Ok, squirt – talk. Who are you and what were you doing in my – uh – mom's carrier bag?" (Hmm... maybe "room" would have sounded better.)

"Our quarrel is not with you, you foolish girl!" yelled the she-demon. She was beating her tiny fists on the curved wall of the force field. "On the contrary: we are trying to protect you! Now let me out of here! How have you done this to me? My mistress will be incensed! She will wreak havoc on you too!"

"Shut up," snapped Kylie. "I'll let you out, honey, as soon as I've got some answers. Who is this mistress of yours?"

"You do not need to know," the demon was adamant. "Don't you understand that she wishes to avenge you?"

"Explain how," Kylie demanded.

"Does this have to do with Kylie's mom?" Eduardo chimed in.

"Hmm. Good guess, sun-kissed one," the she-demon said grudgingly, eyeing Eduardo with deep suspicion. "Not that she has any right to call herself that. Being a mother means more than just bearing a child, you know. That woman makes my mistress most irate."

"Who's your mistress?" Eduardo asked. "And is she as cute as you?"

"Flattery will get you nowhere," the she-demon returned curtly.

"Oh well, it was worth a try," Eduardo shrugged resignedly. "Tell us anyway."

"My mistress is far more daunting than I," the demon proclaimed grandly. "Her very appearance is meant to terrify. The redheaded woman will not stand a chance against her awesome destructive power."

"Oh yeah?" challenged Kylie. "So where do you fit in? If your mistress is so powerful and terrifying, why is she sending her scrawny little minions in first?"

"You are no giantess yourself, my dear," the demon retorted. "You are not built for child-bearing, just like your mother. That was surely a sign. My mistress should have made sure she could never have a child. No disrespect to you, my dear, but your mother was and still is unfit to be a parent. Look how her ineptitude has affected you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kylie demanded angrily.

"Forget it," Eduardo intervened. "Lady, just tell us the name of this mistress of yours and then we'll get you out of that force field."

"Very well," the she-demon agreed. "Simply knowing her name will not allow you to defeat such a powerful Dark Goddess as my mistress. And if I have your word that you will release me from this prison...?"

"You have it," Kylie assured her.

"Very well," the demon said again. "Her name is Kali – and I shall tell you no more. Now release me!"

Kylie stepped forward and closed the trap. She had no qualms about going back on her word to this strange little demon – although strictly speaking, she supposed she wasn't doing that at all. The she-demon was going to be released all right: into the containment unit.

"What a bitch," Kylie remarked, as she fed the trap to the unit. "She pretty much said I should never have been born."

"She doesn't know what she's talking about," Eduardo smiled consolingly at her. "Come on. Assuming you don't want your mother destroyed by this Kali woman's awesome power or whatever – we'd better go see what we can find out."

x x x

"I've got something."

Kylie looked up from her book and swivelled round ninety degrees. She was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with her dim red skirt hammocking the book between her thighs. The heat had led her to scrape her sweat-soaked black hair back into a tight ponytail. For once her mind was not on her studies. All she really wanted to do was take a shower.

Some yards behind her, Eduardo was sitting at the table and surfing the net on a laptop PC. Kylie rested her right arm on the back of the sofa as she looked at him and said obligingly, "Go on then."

"'Kali: one of the most fully realised of all the Dark Goddesses'," Eduardo read aloud from the computer screen. "'Also known as Durga and' – ooh."

"What?" Kylie asked interestedly.

Eduardo scoffed slightly before answering, "'The Nude Indian Goddess of Evil'."

"Cool name," remarked Kylie, smiling her amusement. "So come on then – what does she want with my mom?"

"Funnily enough, Ky, it doesn't actually say," Eduardo replied distractedly, peering at the computer screen as he scrolled down the page. "Let's see... 'Her name is derived from the Hindu word for "time", but also means "black"... accompanied by she-demons' – we knew that... and... oh, lovely," he remarked sarcastically, pulling a face.

"What?" Kylie said again.

"'Her husband is the god Shiva. Often she is depicted as standing or dancing on him; here she is shown squatting over him while she feeds on his intestines'."

"Wow – sounds like my kinda girl. Anyway, this is all fascinating stuff, but it doesn't really help us much," Kylie pointed out. "What on earth would something like that want with Jill?"

"That demon seemed very indignant on your behalf," mused Eduardo. "Like this Kali woman is campaigning against unfit mothers or something... ah, here we go: 'Kali is not always dark. She is also a loving and devoted mother, and it is in this aspect that she is worshipped by millions of Hindus'."

"Whose mother is she?"

"Doesn't say."

"What do you suppose she's planning to do to mine?"

"I don't know, but it probably ain't good," Eduardo replied. "How do we stop her?"

"I don't think we can. Maybe it would be a better idea to try and make her change her mind," Kylie thought out loud.

"Oh yeah? Like how?" Eduardo asked sceptically. "Convince her your mom isn't a bad mother after all?"

"That won't be easy," Kylie remarked dryly. "But I figure there'll be another she-demon in my room any time soon, right? Maybe I can try to fool her into thinking my mom and I are really close."

Eduardo looked doubtful. "If Kali is really so all-powerful, I don't think she'll fall for it. We've done all we can by ourselves, Ky. I think we ought to ask Egon."

"Hmm..."

"What does 'hmm' mean? You can't mean to tell me you don't _want_ to ask Egon."

"I don't know," shrugged Kylie. "It just seems really mean to bother him with something like this right before his wedding."

"Ok, well... we could try asking Ray," Eduardo suggested.

"Ooh – good idea!" enthused Kylie, throwing her book to one side and jumping to her feet. "Come on then – let's go do it now!"

Eduardo pursed his lips as he got up to follow her, recognising this as one of those times when he'd do better not to say anything. If for any reason Egon wouldn't do, Kylie's next target for hero-worship was always Ray. The way she had batted her eyelids at him at the airport the first time the original Ghostbusters came back was positively indecent. Eduardo hadn't been able to keep his opinions to himself at the time – and he had been seething with jealousy ever since.

x x x

"This is my brother's house," Eduardo observed, when Kylie had finally led him where she wanted to go.

"Well spotted."

"So what are we doing here?"

"Well, we can't just turn up at Ray's place," Kylie returned matter-of-factly. "Eric's sick, remember?"

"Is he?"

"Yes. And it's no good calling from my place in case I have any more naked little visitors."

"And we can't call from the Firehouse because...?"

"I just don't really want to be overheard, ok?" snapped Kylie.

"Um... ok," Eduardo meekly agreed, before leading the way up to his front door.

"I thought Kali was the Goddess of Destruction," Ray's voice wafted from the phone. Eduardo had put him on speakerphone simply because he didn't want to miss anything – and besides, Kylie seemed happier with her hands free to fidget.

"Destruction, evil... it all amounts to the same thing really," shrugged Kylie. "And now it seems she's after my mother."

"Why?" Ray asked reasonably.

"I don't know," Kylie said quickly. "Because she's evil and ruthless, I suppose. Why does anybody do anything – never mind a so-called Dark Goddess? The point is: what do we do?"

Eduardo was leaning back against the windowsill, watching the way Kylie's ponytail swept the back of her neck when she moved her head, and the silver crosses hanging from her ears. She was sitting on the edge of his bed. Eduardo wondered if Kylie's stomach had been turning somersaults while he was in her room – the way his was doing now. Probably not, he thought bitterly. Even if she did have a sneaking affection for him, she wasn't nearly as keen as he was. That much was obvious.

"According to legend," mused Ray, "Kali is commanded by the benevolent goddess Devi."

"Great," Kylie returned sarcastically. "Do you happen to have her phone number, or will we have to look her up in the Yellow Pages?"

"Well there's no need for that." Ray sounded hurt.

"Sorry," muttered Kylie. "I'm a little on-edge. There's an evil goddess after my mother. Something puzzles me actually: why now?"

"Why at all?" asked Ray.

Kylie sighed. "I told you I don't know." She didn't feel at all happy about lying to Ray, but she really didn't want to tell him the truth. "I don't know what she's planning to do either. But that wouldn't matter if I only knew how to stop her. Please – don't you have any ideas?"

"If Kali really is a goddess, she must be very powerful," Ray thought out loud. "I wouldn't advise crossing the streams again – the chances of that working more than once are just..."

"So what would you advise?" snapped Eduardo.

"Eduardo!" scolded Kylie, twisting herself round at the waist to glare at him.

"Sorry," he muttered. Great – she'd taken Ray's side over his without hesitation. But he was only getting antsy on her behalf. She was growing more upset and anxious by the second, and he didn't like it one bit.

"Don't apologise – I'm sorry," Ray said brightly. "Just thinking out loud. Wow, this is a toughie. Uh... you could try fighting fire with water. You know: every action has an equal and opposite reaction and all that. So if she's really all that evil - "

"She's not," Eduardo interrupted. "Apparently she's a devoted and loving mother. That's why some people worship her. She challenges Western ideas of an all-good, all-loving God. Apparently she's supposed to show that no coin has only one side; there can be no life without death and all that jazz – there's no ultimate good and no ultimate evil. So like, she's really really good and she's also really really evil. Now call me a Westerner, but I don't really see how she can be all one and all the other at the same time. She should be a little bit of both, surely – like everyone."

Kylie twisted to look at him again and said accusingly, "You didn't tell me that part."

"Didn't seem important," shrugged Eduardo.

"Oh, but it is!" Ray suddenly exclaimed. "If Kali is as two-sided as all that, she's bound not to feel completely ok about... uh... doing whatever it is she wants to do. Have you guys ever seen _'Superman 3'_?"

"Sure," Eduardo and Kylie replied in unison.

"You remember the bit where he turns evil, and then he splits in two so that he's Clark Kent – who's good – and Superman – who's evil?"

"Ye-es," Kylie said slowly. She vaguely remembered, but it was a long time since she had seen that movie.

"Well, you could do that!" Ray finished.

Eduardo and Kylie exchanged a dubious glance before the former asked sceptically, "How?"

"I am absolutely positive that Egon can fine-tune the particle beams in your proton guns to separate any paranormal entity into its two main components of good and evil," Ray explained enthusiastically. "Goodness knows what would happen if we tried it on something with no good in it – but anyway, we've talked about it. I got the idea from 'Star Trek' – you know, the one where the teleporter malfunctions and - "

"Ray," interrupted Kylie. "If that were to work and we did somehow manage to separate Kali into her good and evil self – how could we be sure the good one would win?"

"Good always triumphs over evil," Ray was positive.

"Huh, yeah right – in the movies," scoffed Eduardo. "If this works – and that's a big if – and Evil Kali wins, won't we be worse off than we were before?"

"It's the only plan we've got, Eduardo," Kylie pointed out, looking extremely apprehensive. "We'd better get back to the Firehouse and ask Egon to - "

BEEP!

"What was that?" she asked irritably.

"There's a call on the other line," Eduardo answered expressionlessly.

"Eduardo, you swank – you have two phone lines?" Kylie asked incredulously.

"Sure," Eduardo shrugged. "It's so my brother can call and yell at me from work any time he wants. Later then, Ray. I hope Eric feels better."

"Thanks," said Ray. "Bye then, kids."

Eduardo walked over to the phone, pushed a couple of buttons on it and then said to the air around him, "Hello?"

Kylie was extremely aware of how close to her he was standing. She was furious with herself for feeling this way, but her heart rate escalated when she suddenly realised fully that she was sitting on Eduardo's bed...

"Oh good, you're there." It was Janine – and she sounded very relieved to have reached Eduardo. "We just got a call. And it sounds like a nasty one too. Times Square – some hideous giantess or something is shooting fire at people – I don't know, the guy wasn't all that clear. Anyway, I'll tell Roland to pick you up on the way. I don't suppose you have any idea where Kylie is?"

Eduardo's eyes dropped to the top of Kylie's head. He was clearly wondering what to say. If he answered Janine's question truthfully, he ran the risk of a tirade of verbal abuse from Kylie, followed by days of cold-shouldering.

Sensing Eduardo's doubt, Kylie answered for him: "Sure he does. My face is about three inches away from his... uh – elbow." Crikey, she was going to have to be a lot more careful about not saying what she was thinking.

"Kylie?" exclaimed Janine. Her tone of voice suggested that she could not be more surprised if Betty Boop had just admitted to being in Eduardo's room with him. "You're there? Why?"

"We were making a phone call," Kylie returned tetchily.

"Oh yeah?" Janine asked dubiously. "To whom?"

"Ray, if you must know," Kylie said tartly. "And Janine – have Roland bring us our equipment, will you? Thanks."

She pressed the END CALL button and then, quite inadvertently, collapsed back onto Eduardo's bed. She just needed to lie down. Seriously. What. A. Day.

"You know what she's gonna think we've been doing," she heard Eduardo's voice somewhere above her.

"So?" she said to the ceiling. "Let her think it. I'd rather that than she knew about all this crap with my mother. Why – it doesn't bother you, does it?"

"Me? No, I don't care. I just thought you might."

"You're not a bad looking guy, Eduardo," shrugged Kylie. "Janine'll probably just think: Hey, she's only human."

Oh dear God – did she just really say that? Well, if never looking him in the eye again meant staying in that position until the Ecto-1 arrived, so be it. But on the plus side, Kylie thought, she seemed to have shut him up at last. If only she'd said something like that sooner – she could have avoided months of Eduardo's very-funny-I-DON'T-think jibes and suggestive so-called humour. Then she would only have had this awkward silence to endure. God, it was hot in that room...

"It was just a joke, Eduardo." It was not good – she simply had to break the silence. "I'm entitled, surely, after being on the receiving end for the last nine months."

"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Eduardo.

"Oh, come on!" exclaimed Kylie, suddenly sitting bolt upright to look directly at him. "'Babe', 'toots'... 'Why don't you just go over there and kiss him?'!"

"I was being serious."

"You can't call somebody 'toots' and expect to be taken seriously, Eduardo," Kylie frowned disapprovingly. "And I know for a fact you were kidding when you told me to kiss Egon."

"That's not what I meant," snapped Eduardo. "I mean... you know... what was behind it. That was all real, ok? 'I thought we'd lost you forever' – remember that one? You've got no idea how scared I was that I'd never see you again!"

"Oh, thank God for that!" exclaimed Kylie, leaping to her feet as she heard the Ecto-1's very distinctive siren – maybe two or three blocks away. "Eduardo, we're about to deal with this problem in Times Square; and then please – don't say any of that stuff to me again, ok? I really can't cope with it right now."

"Right now?" echoed Eduardo. "So when?"

He was looking at her so intently, his dark eyes narrow and his expression firm. How could he be so comfortable with this?

"Never," Kylie answered at once.

"How did I know you were going to say that?"

"Because I'm not interested, ok?" yelled Kylie. "Never have been, never will be! I'm fine on my own!"

"Are you happy?" Eduardo asked evenly.

"What?"

"Are you happy?"

"No. Are you?" she returned angrily.

"No. But I know what would make me happy. And if you're not happy either... Does it seem too easy – is that the problem?"

"It doesn't work like that!" yelled Kylie. "Good and evil isn't the only two-sided coin, you know! I'm fine the way I am: not happy, not unhappy! I can never be happy for long, I always end up miserable again – well I don't want to be either!"

There was a brief pause. And then Eduardo began quietly, "You - "

"Shut up!" snapped Kylie, just as the Ecto-1 could be heard pulling up outside. "Now let's go to the car and pretend this never happened, shall we?"

"Yeah," muttered Eduardo. "You're good at that."

"What?" snapped Kylie, turning sharply to face him.

"Nothing," Eduardo sighed wearily. "We'll pretend we didn't almost kiss too, shall we?"

"We didn't almost kiss," Kylie said, slowly and deliberately, through clenched teeth.

"Atta-girl, Ky," Eduardo said sarcastically, locking the door behind him. "That's the spirit."

x x x

"That's what Ray said," Kylie told the two-way radio in the Ecto-1. "Fine-tune the particle beams to separate her into two different people... goddesses, whatever. Can't you do it from the PKE coordinates of those she-demons?"

"I suppose I could try," Egon's voice crackled in reply. "I'd rather have the coordinates of Kali herself, though. Uh... Kylie – why did you ask Ray for help and not me?" he added, sounding slightly hurt.

"I thought you had enough on your plate," shrugged Kylie. "Anyway, do you have a better idea?"

"Um... no," Egon confessed. "I would have suggested that too."

"Well there you go then," Kylie returned shortly. "Ooh – gotta go, Egon; we're here. Wow!"

"What?" asked Egon.

"Janine was right: that is a nasty one!" exclaimed Kylie.

A woman twenty feet tall was throwing fire at innocent passers-by in Times Square. She was almost naked and didn't seem to care – although she didn't really have the kind of body that most women would feel comfortable in. She was as black as pitch and emaciated to skeletal proportions. Her mouth and razor-sharp teeth were smeared with blood.

But what little she wore was the truly revolting part. Draped around her waist was a girdle of bloody and severed arms; she wore a necklace of skulls and severed heads, live cobras coiled around her wrists and earrings that looked suspiciously like the corpses of children.

Roland shook his head and said quietly, "That's just sick."

"All who stand in my way shall be destroyed!" the enormous woman yelled furiously. "Be gone, all of you, and I shall spare you for now!"

Roland and Garrett climbed or rolled respectively out of the car. Kylie made to follow suit, but Eduardo put a restraining hand on her shoulder and murmured next to her ear, "Uh... Kylie, I've got a sort of feeling that might be..."

"Mom!" exclaimed Kylie, her eyes widening in horror as she distinctly saw her own mother dragged to a cage of green light around the monster's feet. "It is her! How did you know?" she asked Eduardo.

Several of Kali's tiny she-demons were dragging Jill by the hair.

"That thing matches the description I read on the Internet," Eduardo explained, as Jill was thrown into the laser cage along with several other women. "And it looks like she wasn't just after your mom."

"Yeah," Kylie nodded slowly. "It must be her day to round up unfit mothers. Well, I suppose we'd better – oh jeez, what is Garrett doing now?"

With their eyes fixed firmly on Garrett, Eduardo and Kylie both climbed out of the car. Moments earlier their impulsive friend had been shooting proton beams at his giant adversary, but Kali had since put a stop to that and was holding him up in a tight fist.

"PUT HIM DOWN!" screamed Kylie, running towards the terrifying apparition.

Kali's expression went from horrific to pensive as she turned to look at the new arrival. Then the goddess dumped Garrett on the ground several yards from his wheelchair and stooped down to get a closer look at Kylie.

"I hear you have been most unaccommodating to my she-demons, little one," rasped Kali. "Perhaps you do not deserve my kindness after all."

"You know what? You're right," faltered Kylie, her voice trembling madly. "You should just let my mom go."

"I think not, my dear," Kali grinned evilly. As she opened her mouth a huge drop of blood fell from an incisor and splashed over Kylie's boot. "Everything you are your mother made you: deluded, miserable, afraid to love..."

Kylie shook her head. "I don't care what you think," she asserted, taking a few steps back towards Eduardo and Roland. "I don't have to listen to this. Go on – get on with it. See if I care," and she turned as though to leave.

"She doesn't love you, Kylie!" exclaimed Kali.

"Fine!" yelled Kylie, turning to glare angrily at the gigantic woman. "I don't love her either! Kill her if you want to – makes no odds to me!"

She ran to Eduardo and Roland. Seconds later they were joined by Garrett, who had refused several offers of help and still managed to haul himself back to his chair.

"Did you get a reading?" Eduardo asked anxiously.

"No." Kylie shook her head. "Sorry. She got me too flustered. You do it."

"WHAT?" squeaked Eduardo.

"She probably won't even notice you," Kylie said impatiently. "Just go over there, get a reading, go back to the Ecto-1 and tell it to Egon – ok?"

"Um... ok," Eduardo agreed. "Hey, Kylie, what you said to her... you didn't mean it, did you?"

"Not now, Eduardo," Kylie sighed impatiently. "Go get the reading, ok?"

Eduardo spared her one last pitying look before carefully approaching the rampaging goddess.

"You two just concentrate on getting everybody out of here, ok?" Kylie went on, turning to her other two companions. "And that means you too, Garrett. I'll see what I can do about that little laser light show over there."

"Ooh – yes ma'am!" Garrett returned sarcastically, mock-saluting her.

"Shut up," scowled Kylie, giving his chair a kick into the crowd. Then she spun on her heel and aimed a long blast of proton fire at Kali's cage of light. She hadn't expected it to do much good, and she was pleasantly surprised when a patch of light began to flicker and fade. Two or three of Kali's captives were able to crawl free – but the she-demons were upon them in less than a second.

Eduardo gave Kylie a thumbs-up on his way back to the Ecto-1. Ok, great. Now all they had to do was wait for Egon and hope nobody got killed in the meantime. And it would be good, Kylie thought, if she could cut another hole in that cage. She would have to get the she-demons out of the way first, of course – so she aimed her proton pistol at a small group of them that surrounded the cage.

Quite suddenly a score of she-demons appeared out of nowhere. Five of them grabbed hold of Kylie's proton pistol and wrenched it from her hand; several more of them took fistfuls of her hair and began dragging her backwards (yes – they could fly too, it seemed). Crying out in pain, Kylie fell back and was immediately set upon by yet more she-demons. They were exactly like a swarm of bees: ridiculously small, but impossible to fight off en-masse.

"Hey!" Kylie heard a familiar voice exclaim – and then she saw a short, sharp blast of proton fire shooting over her head. "Get away from her, you little freaks!"

"Don't attack them, you moron!" yelled Kylie. "That's how I got into this mess in the first place!"

"Leave her alone!" Eduardo shouted at the demons. He skidded to a halt beside Kylie and dropped to his knees. "She won't shoot at you anymore, ok?"

This seemed to satisfy some of the she-demons; others wouldn't budge until Kylie and Eduardo both batted at them with their hands.

"Kylie, don't you dare get yourself killed," Eduardo said sternly as he helped her to her feet. "I'm not done with you yet."

"I thought we were going to pretend that never happened."

"You can," Eduardo returned curtly. "I'm not. I heard what that crazy bitch said to you."

"Oh jeez." Kylie rolled her eyes. "So?"

"So I've figured it out," Eduardo persisted. "You don't want to let yourself fall for me in case you get – AAH!"

His psychoanalysis was interrupted by a fireball the size of a basketball shooting over their heads. Eduardo had to duck – Kylie was just out of reach – and then Kali bellowed at them, "I said leave me be!"

"Hey, we were just talking!" Eduardo yelled up at her.

"Where have all the people gone?" demanded Kali. "Where is the immobile man who angered me? I have not finished with him yet!"

"Right here, honey!" Garrett's voice rang out in challenging tones. "Want s'more, do ya? DO YA?"

"Garrett, DON'T!" yelled Kylie. "Egon's on his way, ok? All we have to do is sit tight until he gets here!"

"Ha!" scoffed Garrett. "I think I can handle one little giant – AAH!"

Kali had plucked him from his chair again and was grinning insanely at him. Her teeth were still dripping blood, and Garrett wrinkled his nose in disgust as she brought him close to her mouth.

"Garrett Miller, you are the most brainless idiot I have ever come across!" Kylie yelled furiously.

"Oh." Eduardo flashed her a winning smile. "Thanks."

"Don't try to be cute, Eduardo," Kylie shot back.

"It was just a joke," Eduardo defended himself.

"Yeah? Well, I don't have a sense of humour."

"Huh," muttered Eduardo. "You can say that again."

"Did you tell Egon to hurry?"

"Of course I did."

"Well," Kylie deadpanned. "I don't think he'll be able to get here before Kali eats Garrett and makes jewellery out of what's left. One of us ought to do something."

As it turned out, Roland was already doing something. In the same moment that Kylie finished her sentence, a stream of proton fire hit the hand in which Kali held Garrett. She screamed out in rage, or pain, or both – the cobra round her wrist hissed in protest – and Kali threw her captive roughly to the ground.

"You don't have to do this!" Roland yelled up at the terrifying giantess. "There's no need to hurt innocent people!"

"What's he doing?" Eduardo asked incredulously.

"He's trying to appeal to her better nature," Kylie answered blandly.

"These women are not innocent!" yelled Kali. "Leave me be or I shall take your mother too! You are the oldest of seven, are you not? Do you sometimes find your mother neglectful?"

"Uh... no," Roland replied confusedly.

Kali cackled and exclaimed, "I don't believe you! Isn't it true that your mother takes better care of your small brothers and sisters than she does of you?"

"Um... I suppose so," Roland confessed. "But that's ok. I'm nineteen years old."

"Oh, thank goodness," Kylie sighed with relief as a taxi drew up nearby and Egon climbed out of the back, complete with suitably modified proton pack. "Hey, Egon – are you sure this is going to work?"

"Not positive, no," Egon admitted. Then, aiming his proton gun at Kali, he said, "But I think it's definitely worth a try."

Again Kali screamed with rage as another proton stream hit her – this one more powerful than the last. She began to writhe with pain – and then she actually began to split in two like a single-celled amoeba.

"Kinda reminds me of the trolls," muttered Eduardo.

"Egon!" exclaimed Garrett, skidding to a noisy halt beside the newcomer. (Again, returning to his chair hadn't been that much of a problem – but nevertheless he rather hoped he wouldn't have to do it a third time.) "What's going on?"

"She's becoming two separate beings: one good and one evil," Egon explained.

"We hope," Kylie added.

Egon shut off his proton stream as a second Kali pulled free of the original. She was identical in appearance but for the fact that she wasn't wearing any dead people or body parts as jewellery. She was even dripping blood from her mouth – but she soon put a stop to that by dignifiedly wiping it away with the back of her scraggy black hand.

"What have you done to me?" yelled the evil Kali. "How have you done this to me?"

"Dr. Spengler is a very clever man," her alter ego smiled serenely. "However he does not have time to explain that now. He has a wedding to prepare for."

"How does she know all this stuff?" muttered Eduardo.

"I suppose she's omniscient," shrugged Roland.

"So let your captives go, Kali, and we can rejoin and return to where we belong."

"I belong here!" yelled Kali. "These unfit mothers..."

When she stopped short, evidently no longer sure of herself, a thought struck Kylie. She cocked an eyebrow and asked interestedly, "Hey, Kali – do you still care?"

"I care not what they have done," the evil goddess replied. "But that is no reason not to destroy them."

"Oh dear," her alter ego sighed despairingly. "How can I dissuade you?"

"You cannot!"

"Then I am afraid we must fight."

"Ok, here's the bit from 'Superman 3'," Eduardo said quietly to Kylie. "Just what are we going to do if Superman beats Clark Kent this time?"

"Die, I suppose," murmured Kylie.

The two Kalis had both raised their hands. The evil version of the goddess was grinning evilly as she conjured a ball of green fire – if you can visualise such a thing. This she aimed at her alter ego, who was just able to deflect it in time with a blanket of brilliant white light.

"Ok, good save!" Garrett yelled at her. "Now how about attacking, huh?"

Benevolent Kali threw her own fireball at her opponent – this one a rather pretty shade of crimson. It hit its target square in the hollow that was her left cheek. Evil Kali stepped back and screamed; however she recovered quickly and counterattacked at once with zigzags of blue lightning that shot from her fingers.

"DE-fence!" yelled Garrett, just as Kali's benign self bent double when the lightning hit her.

"Shut up, Garrett," muttered Kylie.

"We could continue like this for all eternity," the evil Kali spat vehemently at her doppelganger. "You and I are one and the same. Our power is equal – identical, even – and so neither of us will ever triumph over the other. Therefore I suggest you remember why you had me take these women in the first place and let me get on with destroying them."

"We should give them another chance," reasoned the other. "All mothers love their children, even if that love is sometimes buried deep within. Maybe if we reunite these women with their offspring, they will have a chance to repair the bond and know the greatest love there is."

"Pah!" the evil goddess spat. "You cannot win me round by appealing to my emotions. I have no emotions but hatred and rage!"

"Very well." The benign goddess was keeping her cool remarkably well. "I know, then, what I must do. It is true: there is no one-sided coin. Neither one of us can exist without the other. Without good, there can be no evil."

With that she conjured a knife into her right hand and then plunged it into her stomach. Her slight yelp of pain was drowned out by the evil Kali's scream of, "NOOOOOO!" in the instant before they both vanished into thin air.

Roland was the first to speak – after a considerably long stunned silence. "Whoa!" he exclaimed.

"I didn't see that one coming," added Garrett.

"So... is she dead?" asked Kylie.

"Nah," shrugged Eduardo. "Not really. She's one of those things where if somebody believes in her, she still exists. Gods are like that apparently."

Egon, Roland and Garrett all stared at him.

"He read it on the Internet," Kylie explained dryly.

Of course the she-demons and the cage of light had all vanished along with Kali, and now all of the unfit mothers in her collection were wandering around Times Square and looking very confused. There must have been at least fifty of them. How sad – all those kids. Kylie spotted her own mother in the crowd, and with no explanation to her friends (only one of whom had even met Jill Griffin) she walked towards her.

"Kylie!" exclaimed Jill. "What on earth happened?"

"Malevolent Hindu goddess, Mom," Kylie answered with a humourless smile. "So... were you already here, or were you lured?"

"I was waitressing about a block away," Jill replied. "I need to earn the money for my plane ticket out of here."

"Oh." Kylie didn't think her heart could sink any lower, but it did. She couldn't even understand why. Surely she didn't expect her mother to stay this time and build bridges. "When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow, sweetie," Jill smiled at her. "It's been a great visit, though. Thanks."

_Visit? Is that what it was? Whom exactly did you think you were visiting? _"Where are you going?"

"Hawaii, hon. After that – who knows?"

"Staying the night?" Kylie asked quietly.

"I'll probably be out all night," answered Jill. "I'll come and say goodbye to you in the morning, though."

_Will you? _thought Kylie. _That makes a nice change._

x x x

In the week that followed, Kylie deftly avoided Eduardo's eye and did a brilliant job of never letting herself be alone with him. Eduardo decided not to let it bother him too much, at least for a while. Kylie was upset. Her mother's visit had been brief, and yet it must have been emotionally exhausting. And besides, if she responded to his affections now, it might be for no other reason than heartbreak or loneliness. How was he supposed to know if she really wanted him, or just another human being?

But then came the eve of the famous Spengler/Melnitz wedding, and Eduardo couldn't take it anymore. So at eight o'clock in the evening, he took a bus to Kylie's place and knocked on her door.

"I was hoping you wouldn't do this," Kylie frowned at him.

"You were also hoping your mom wouldn't leave you again," returned Eduardo. "Missing her?"

"No."

"Feeling lonely?"

"No."

"Kylie, please," Eduardo said imploringly. "Talk to me. I understand now – I do. You're afraid of getting hurt."

"Well, why shouldn't I be?" demanded Kylie. "My mom left me, and then my only friend disappeared, and finally Grandma Rose died. A lot of people hurt me – but if you don't let anyone get close, you can't get hurt. It's as simple as that."

"No it's not," argued Eduardo. "It obviously isn't working for you, and that's why I want to try and make you happy. I can't even bear to think about you all on your own up here feeling like shit. It upsets me too much. I don't know how bad it is, Kylie, because you've never told me – but I can tell you're not happy."

"Well, maybe I'm not," Kylie relented. "I was ok for a while, you know. When I got settled into this place and it started to feel like home... This is going to sound really pathetic, but my cat is actually quite good company. Hell, he's the only person who's ever..."

Kylie stopped, took a deep breath and then started again: "But when my mom showed up here she just threw me. All I..." – she was dangerously close to tears now, and trying desperately to keep her voice level – "all I ever wanted was for her to love me, and to come back for me. But it's too late for that now, I guess. Everybody I love goes out of my life – and let's face it, if somebody does stick around for me, it's hardly likely to be you."

Eduardo's eyebrows shot skyward. "What's that suppose to mean?"

"Well, you're not exactly a one girl guy," Kylie pointed out. "Are you."

"Sure I am."

She just looked at him.

"Ok – but I could be," Eduardo was adamant. "With you I would be. I don't want anybody else, ok?" What he wanted, in fact, was to put his arms around her. She really looked about to cry. "I love you, Kylie."

"Oh jeez." She turned away from him, just in time to conceal a treacherous tear. "Don't say that."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it'll make me feel worse about rejecting you."

"Please don't reject me," Eduardo begged. "Look – Egon and Janine are getting married tomorrow."

"I know."

"It took them the best part of fifteen years to get there."

"I know."

"Well, I don't want that to happen to us," Eduardo went on. "So that's why I'm telling you how I feel. Maybe you don't feel the same way – or maybe you're just too afraid that I'll make you happy and then you'll have too much to lose. But... well, if you want me I'm yours," he finished.

Kylie still had her back to him. She didn't say anything.

"Ok," Eduardo said slowly. "I'll get out of your way, then."

He turned to leave. But Kylie didn't want him to go – and what's more she couldn't suppress the urge not to let him. So, hastily blinking back the last threat of tears, she spun on her heel and said quietly, "Eduardo."

He turned back to face her. She looked at him a few moments more – and then took him totally by surprise when she stood up on tiptoe, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth.

"Um..." Eduardo faltered, when she finally pulled away. "So does that mean...?"

"Oh, what the hell?" shrugged Kylie, smiling for the first time in a long time as she tightened her grip on his neck. "Let's give it a shot."

THE END

Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and various people at Columbia pictures. All original characters created by me, Kali excepted as she is from Hindu Mythology, but I did put my own spin on her and her she-demons.


End file.
